Rethinking Small Spaces: Making One Room Do More

/an underused narrow entryway until recent but now works so much better for our family

It’s a familiar instinct: when a home begins to feel tight, the solution must be more space.

A quiet thought, usually surfacing in moments when a room feels a little too full, or when the idea of “just one more room” seems like the solution to everything. More space has a certain appeal - it promises ease, a sense that life would simply work better. An extra room. A larger layout. A sense of breathing room that square footage seems to promise.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll regret staying in a small home. But what if the issue isn’t always the size of a home, but how that space is being used?

In smaller homes especially, it’s often not a lack of space, but a lack of intention - rooms that are underused, corners that serve no real function, layouts that don’t reflect how life is actually lived day to day.

This shift in perspective has quietly reshaped the way I approach our own home.

when a room isn't doing enough

Traditionally, we tend to assign a single purpose to each room: a bedroom for sleeping, a guest room for occasional visitors, a living room for gathering. While the rooms are lovely to look at, they might be rarely used.

But in a smaller home, that way of thinking can be limiting.

// When viewed differently, that same room can become an opportunity - a space capable of holding multiple functions without requiring any structural change.

In our case, it was the guest room - used for only a few weeks each year, while the rest of the home worked much harder. It felt like the clearest place to add another purpose, and so: our underused guest room is being transformed into a shared toddler + guest space.

view of guest room

view of guest room from living space

guest room unwind corner

/ views of our underused guest room

A rarely used guest room takes up valuable square footage while other areas of the home feel stretched. When viewed differently, that same room can become an opportunity - a space capable of holding multiple functions without requiring any structural change.

Rather than asking what a room is, it becomes more useful to ask:

what does this space need to do?

This is where the idea of multifunctional design comes in - not as a compromise, but as a more thoughtful way of living within a smaller footprint.

thinking in zones, not in rooms

One of the most effective ways to make a small room feel more functional is to think in terms of zones.

Instead of designing around a single purpose, the room is divided - visually and practically - into smaller areas that support different activities. These zones don’t require walls or partitions. Often, they are defined through furniture placement, rugs, lighting, or even subtle shifts in scale to visually separate areas which makes a big difference.

The result is a room that feels structured without feeling crowded.

/ different zones within the shared toddler + guest room layout

In our own space, this approach has meant reworking a single bedroom to hold multiple roles: a sleeping area, a dressing zone, a quiet corner, and space for play. It remains one room, but functions as several and now supports far more of our daily life.

For anyone working with a small room or limited square footage, this shift - from room to zones - can be transformative.

making a small space feel intentional

One of the things I’ve learned over time is that small spaces don’t benefit from doing less - they benefit from doing things more thoughtfully.

A few principles have been guiding me through this process.

The first is to treat each part of the room as its own small vignette. Instead of letting everything blur together, each zone is given a sense of identity through placement, texture, or scale. It doesn’t require more space - just a bit more clarity.

// There’s a tendency to want everything resolved at once - to have a clear “before and after.” But in reality, it’s often only after living in a space that you begin to understand what it actually needs.

The second is choosing furniture that works harder. Multi-purpose pieces make a noticeable difference, not just in how a room functions, but in how it feels to move through it. When one piece can serve multiple needs, it reduces visual and physical clutter at the same time.

/ a page from my personal library: Living Small by Laura Fenton

Storage, too, becomes an opportunity rather than an afterthought. In a smaller home, it helps to think beyond the obvious - using vertical space where possible, incorporating hidden storage, and allowing even practical elements to contribute to the overall aesthetic.

And perhaps most importantly, allowing the room to come together slowly.

There’s a tendency to want everything resolved at once - to have a clear “before and after.” But in reality, it’s often only after living in a space that you begin to understand what it actually needs.

Letting that process unfold will make decisions feel more grounded and less reactive.

designing with flexibility in mind (our current project)

One of the biggest challenges in our shared room project is that the room needs to work for two very different people: a toddler and a guest. Visually, I’m aiming for a space that feels layered and warm - something that leans into a sense of whimsy for our kid without tipping into something overly themed or temporary, so that it’s still calm and inviting for guests staying over. That balance has shaped nearly every decision I’ve made so far.

/ a vision moodboard of the shared room project

A mix of old and new. Softer textures balanced with more structured pieces. Elements that feel playful, but still connected to the rest of our home.

At this stage, I also made a firm decision: no typical kids furniture, especially plastic. Not because there’s anything inherently wrong with it - but because it often serves a very specific moment in time. It’s designed for one phase, one function, one version of a space.

What I’m more interested in are pieces that can adapt. Furniture that can shift roles, evolve over time, and feel at home in more than one context. This philosophy will guide future weeks when I source versatile, multi-use pieces.

a shift in perspective

With smaller spaces, we tend to want immediate solutions - to resolve every corner quickly and move on. But some of the most successful spaces evolve gradually. Living in a room reveals what’s missing, what’s unnecessary, and what could work better. It allows decisions to be informed by experience rather than assumption.

Designing slowly doesn’t mean doing less - it means doing things with greater clarity.

The question of whether a small home is “enough” doesn’t always have a clear answer. But rethinking how space is used - how rooms function, how furniture is chosen, how layouts are approached - can shift that question entirely.

Instead of asking how to find more space, it becomes possible to ask how to use existing space more intentionally. And often, that change in perspective reveals possibilities that weren’t immediately obvious.

a note on the process

This exploration is currently unfolding as part of the One Room Challenge, a biannual design event where participants transform a space over several weeks and share the process along the way.

It’s a chance to document not just the outcome, but the thinking behind it - the decisions, adjustments, and small shifts that ultimately shape a room.

For our shared room project, I’m currently working through these ideas in real time - testing how much function a single room can realistically hold without renovation. Week 1 was all about exploration and visualizing ideas - laying out zones, creating the mood, and imagining how the room will function.

You can explore the full list of participants and their projects here, and follow along as this shared room continues to evolve.